Lost Factor 2000: New Millennium, Same Teen Backlash

In the late ’90s and early ’00s, with teen pop at its peak, Clear Channel Radio (now iHeart Media) rewrote the Top 40 landscape with a handful of stations branded as “Kiss-FM” and positioned as “all the hits, not just some of them.” Those stations, often in Midwestern markets, played more Hip-Hop, R&B, and rhythmic pop than their Modern AC-leaning rivals. In doing so, they also hastened the demise of teen pop and ushered in a new, harder-edged era of the format.

Over the last few years, the late ’90s and early ’00s have returned to Top 40 in a significant way —through syndicated shows, through “throwback weekends” on formats from Mainstream AC to CHR, and through new stations such as iHeart’s KZIS (Kiss 107.9) Sacramento and the just-launched WPAY (Party 103.3) Toledo, Ohio. The top tier of teen acts — Backstreet, Britney, and ‘N Sync — have gone from “oh wow” to “airplay staple” in a few years’ time. 

But only some of the 2000 hits are back, not all of them, based on our latest Lost Factor analysis, which measures songs’ stature on Billboard’s Year-End Top 100 at the time against their current airplay at BDSradio monitored stations in the U.S. and Canada. Of the top 15 Lost Factor songs, at least seven could be classified as teen pop — including a few by major artists. There are also a handful of rhythmic pop titles that were staples on the Clear Channel Kiss outlets.

Spins were calculated for the week of August 24-30 to avoid being influenced by Labor Day-weekend throwback and other special programming. (A few songs would have been dramatically affected, although it was mostly top-tier titles that were likely to be jumpin’, jumpin’ (e.g., the Destiny’s Child song of that name that went from 268 spins last week to 419 this week). Here are the Top 15 songs with the highest Lost Factor, according to BDSradio.

1. Jessica Simpson, “I Wanna Love You Forever” (LF 45, spins for the week 1)
2. Britney Spears, “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” (24, 0)
3. Westlife, “Swear It Again” (13, 2)
4. Debelah Morgan, “Dance With Me” (12, 1)
5. Mariah Carey f/Joe & 98 Degrees, “Thank God I Found You” (11, 5)
6. 98 Degrees, “Give Me Just One Night” (11, 4)
7. Sammie, “I Like It” (10, 1)
8. Savage Garden, “Crash and Burn: (8, 0)
9. Smash Mouth, “Then the Morning Comes” (8, 7)
10. Janet, “Doesn’t Really Matter” (8, 11)
11. Christina Aguilera, “I Turn to You” (8, 2)
12. Pink, “There You Go” (7, 12)
13. Lil Bow Wow f/Xscape, “Bounce With Me” (7, 1)
14. Pink, “Most Girls” (4, 11)
15. BBMak, “Back Here” (4, 16)

As we have in the past, we combined U.S. and Canadian airplay. The ’90s/early-’00s format has taken hold in several major Canadian markets, although the most dramatic impact of combined airplay was on a few Canadian titles — Celine Dion’s “That’s the Way It Is” (would have had a 5.6 Lost Factor but comes in under a 1 LF, our dividing line for “lost,” thanks to Canadian airplay) and Souldecision’s “Faded” (only a 1.2 without Canadian radio, but a 0.14 with it). 

These are the songs that are getting airplay now disproportionate to their year-end placement at the time:

1. Jennifer Lopez, “Waiting for Tonight”
2. Mary Mary, “Shackles (Praise You)” — benefits from ongoing Adult R&B and Gospel play as well as a low year-end placing at No. 100
3. Destiny’s Child, “Independent Women”
4. Lee Ann Womack, “I Hope You Dance”
5. Blink 182, “All the Small Things”